


World Beyond Repair

by sanidine



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Farm/Ranch, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Slavery, Clint Has Issues, Clint’s Crappy Past, Cults, F/M, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Magic-Users, Misunderstandings, Slow Build, Tags May Change, Team as Family, Technology/Technomancy, Weird Apocalypse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-02-11
Updated: 2016-05-06
Packaged: 2018-05-19 16:19:50
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 17,097
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5973895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sanidine/pseuds/sanidine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One morning the world woke up to find that everything had Changed. The sky had gone red, and birds of prey had begun to speak the names of the dead and those that were soon to join them. Things got real strange for a while, with everyone trying to understand how to live in a new world while standing in the ashes of the old one. But when people started figuring things out it only got weirder.</p><p>Ten years later, Phil Coulson tries to do a good thing and Clint Barton finds himself in the posession of a man who still uses his turn signals.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Have this be your general warning for Clint’s Crappy Past. Nothing will be recounted in too much detail, but heads up for: past sexual abuse/noncon on someone as young as 13, past abuse (physical/mental/emotional), burning/branding, food issues, any other standard slave!fic stuff I am forgetting. If there is something in particular that you are worried about running across, please message me!
> 
> A lot of this weird setting will make more sense as the story goes on, I promise. Just hang in there!

High noon came and went while Phil was on the road, window rolled down so that he could get some fresh air, rooster-tail plume of black dust kicking up in the rearview mirror. The highways had all been paved up until a few years ago when the roads had all turned into veins of bubbling red magma during a partial solar eclipse. Tony would go on and on about heat stress and fine aggregate compositions, but the long and short of it was that once the roads had stopped boiling, the old asphalt was so damaged that it had just fallen apart  into gravel. It would have been hell on the tires, if not for the fact that the truck hadn't needed tires since Tony had ‘improved’ it.

Phil slowed the truck down once he got into town, didn't even have a chance to get fully parked before the little girl skipped up to him.

“Vul-ture, Vul-ture, Vul-ture!” She sing-songed Phil’s least favorite nickname at him from about three feet away, dancing around him as he climbed out and stretched out his legs.

Phil had seen the kid around before, knew her by name and by sight. Emma was about seven years old. She was missing one of her front teeth and she had pale blond hair tied back in pigtails. Emma also happened to have three arms. Two in the normal spots and the extra sprouting out of the right side of her rib cage. The hand on the extra arm had seven fingers on it, and was currently clutching a faded doll that was missing more hair than not.  Far from the strangest thing that Phil had come across - at least the extra arm was fully functioning.

There weren't very many children around anymore. Most of the ones that had been begotten and born in the past ten years had been…unsuited. Not meant for living in the world. But Emma was a third child, born with three arms, and that third arm had seven fingers on it. Phil didn't have Tony’s innate ability for understanding high strangeness, but even he knew that - at least numerically speaking - Emma was about as safe as she could get.

“Mister Vulture, you gonna eat my mama?”

“Maybe.” Phil had seen Emma’s mother in passing just a few days before, the last time he had come to town.  She had looked fine then, but there was no telling what could have happened in the time between. “She dead?”

“Nah.”

“Then I'm not gonna eat her now am I?” Phil said, tipping his ball cap back to scratch at his scalp.

“Nah. But this morning there was a hawk on a stop sign and it was sayin’ her name. Ma-ry, Ma-ry. That's bad, right?” Emma looked up at him and Phil had to admit that it wasn't a particularly good omen. Emma continued “And I'm just sayin when she dies I want you to eat her, okay? I wanna make sure she goes to a good place and don't come back bad. I'll give you my dolly if you promise!”

Emma held the toy out to him, and Phil knelt down. Pretended to inspect it for a moment before handing it back.

“Hmm. Seems like a fair trade. How about you can hang on to dolly until the time comes, and I'll take the payment when I come to collect her. Okay?”

“Okay!” Emma said brightly, before hugging her doll to her chest and skipping away.

Phil watched her go. If Emma's mom did die, he would have to make sure someone would look after the girl. There was an older sister that lived a few towns over, he knew, who was old enough that she had born before the Change. Phil figured he would end up giving the girl a ride, just to ensure that Emma made it to her sister's’ place unharmed. Didn't get lost or misled. The new generation was going to be strange, sure enough, but Phil still had a soft spot when it came to kids. Even if they had three arms or were covered in eyes or only ate old car batteries or whatever other weird afflictions they were being born with these days.

Phil crossed the street, glancing up from under the rim of his ballcap. The sun was a bright white hole in the dark red sky, throwing up shimmering heat mirages. Wispy white clouds were starting to accumulate in the west towards the mountains but it was too soon to tell if it was going to be a storm or just a little bit of shade. When Phil pushed his way through the door of the general store, whatever conversation had been taking place died as soon as he crossed the threshold. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness of the room he could see that everyone had paused, staring at him but trying to look like they weren’t. Which was pretty much par for the course.

There was Jasper, in his customary spot behind the counter, and the group of old timers who had nothing better to do except sit around the shop playing cards and gossiping. Phil heard something jangle, the clang of metal on metal, and he glanced over to where the sound had come from. To his right there was an old radiator, and huddled into the space between the radiator and the floor was a man. That was. New. The man looked fairly young from what Phil could see, and he was wearing nothing more than a pair of shorts and a heavy iron manacle locked around one ankle, chain snaking over to where the other end was attached to the radiator. Careful to keep his face neutral, Phil let his eyes slide past the curled figure as if it was something he saw every day. When his eyes finally settled on the man behind the counter, the shopkeeper smiled at him.

“Coulson.”

“Sitwell.”

“What brings you back to town so soon? Hope you aren't hungry again, haven't had anyone else die this week.”

One of the old men laughed at that, and then the group's attention was back on their cards. Business as usual. Times like this, Phil had to work hard to remember that it had been his own idea to encourage that particular rumor.

“Nothing like that, just need a sack of flour” Phil paused as Jasper bent over and hefted the sack onto the counter. “And we ordered some shirts last month, out of the catalog. Figured they should have got in by now.”

Jasper grumbled a little as he went back to search for Phil’s order, and Phil took the opportunity to observe the chained man. Phil couldn't see his face due to the way he was curled in on himself, but it was obvious at a glance that the guy was in rough shape. Vertebrae and ribs stood out in high relief against the his skin, and even though the boot-shaped bruises were old enough to be fading to yellow there were a bunch of the welts looked new. The man was too pale in the few spots where his was skin wasn't covered in traces of abuse and filth - dirt and ash and old blood, long since dried to a dull reddish-brown.

Phil heard Jasper coming back up behind him, didn't try to hide the fact that he had been staring. He was going to have to play this carefully, going to have to ride on his reputation a little more than he would like, but. If it worked out then it would be worth it.

“Thought you said there weren't any new dead.”

“There aren't. He's just playing possum.” Jasper whistled through his teeth, one sharp note, and the guy flinched, shivered all over. “See?”

“Didn't know you were dealing in people now too.”

“New development. Some guy passed through yesterday, wanted that map to California that I've had in stock since forever. Was gonna sell it to him cheap, but he didn't have anything to trade with except the slave.”

“Hmm. Well, if you don’t mind me saying so it looks like you got ripped off. What's with the iron?” Phil raised an eyebrow, feigning concern. “Don't tell me he's being ridden.”

“Nope. Not like that, anyways.” Jasper looked back over at Phil, smiled nastily. “Chain’s just what I had at hand. Why do you care so much anyways?”

“Don’t.” Phil shrugged “Just figured him for dead, thought maybe I could take him off your hands and we'd call it even on that sack of flour?”

“Fat chance, Coulson. You can have him in a couple of days probably, but not yet.”

“Or,” Phil prodded “I can just take him now anyways. Won't have to charge you for collection later.”

“Fuck off.”

“Have it your way. But unless I can take him with me now, I don't think I'll come back to collect the body once he's done. You keep it, try and get rid of it yourself.” Phil smiled back, showing too many teeth and trying to come off creepy. It worked. “Looks like he's been through the wringer. Bet he'd have plenty of reasons to stick around and haunt this place.”

Jasper glared, eyes narrowed at the threat. “You wouldn't.”

“Not sure. This time of year I get plenty to eat. Actually, now that I think about it -” Phil shook his head “I'm not so sure I want him at all. Dead, or alive.”

“Fine, just take him.” Jasper looked cross, finally having admitted that Phil had him over a barrel. “But I'm keeping the chain. And you've still have to pay me for that flour.”

Deal done, Phil grabbed the sack of flour and the shirts, taking them out to the truck and situating them in the middle of the bench seat before going back into the shop. The attention on him wasn’t as painfully obvious as it had been when he’d first entered, but Phil still got the impression that he was being watched as he hauled the guy to his feet. Great. Now they were all going to be saying that he was a slaver as well as a cannibal. The man in question had finally gotten his legs underneath him, and he was taller than Phil would have guessed. Younger, too. Looked to be early twenties at the oldest, which was an odd sight in a world that aged people as quickly as this one did. The guy cringed away from being touched when Phil reached towards him, ducking his head and hunching his shoulders as Phil tried to look him over and see how bad off he really was. Fine. This wasn’t the time or the place anyways.

“Let's go.” Phil said, and when the man made no move to follow him, Phil just sighed, acting put upon, and grabbed one of his too-thin wrists to steer them out of the store and back across the street to where the truck was waiting.

The clouds that had been wispy and white in the distance had been building up, going grey and heavy in a way that made the garnet colored sky look even darker. Clouds that came out of the west rained water most of the time - not blood or milk or oil like the storms that came out of the east - but Phil still didn't want to get caught out in it. The man that he had just bartered for wasn't dragging his feet, exactly, but he wasn't moving with speed either. His face was blank when Phil caught a glimpse of it, but his eyes were wide as they tracked over the white crosses and scrawling glyphs that were painted on the sides of the truck.

Phil wanted to pause, to take a second and reassure the man that he hadn't been thrown from the frying pan and into the fire, but he figured that there would be plenty of time for all that once they were on the road. Careful not to smear the paint, Phil reached over and opened the passenger door. The guy made no move to get in. Phil sighed

“We need to go, come on.”

“What? No way that thing runs.” The man said, almost offhand, before his eyes darted up to Phil’s face. Blank before, his face was suddenly terrified. “Sorry, sir. Sorry. I can ride in the back.”

It was only long years of practice that enabled Phil to hide his grimace when he figured out that the man meant the open bed of the truck. “You really can’t. Now get in.”

The guy looked down, bare feet shuffling in the gravel, and Phil realized that he was going to have to find a pair of shoes somewhere. He almost missed it when the guy muttered “Sir, I -. I don’t wanna get your truck dirty.”

Phil didn't know if it was an actual concern for the upholstery or just a tactic to avoid being trapped in the cab of the truck with Phil. Maybe the guy was thinking he could jump out of the bed while Phil was driving. Whatever it was it didn't matter, they needed to get on the road and stop standing around attracting attention. Phil did the only thing he could think of, which was start unbuttoning his shirt so the guy would have something to cover his wounds with. The man went very still, then. Subtle twitches stilled, and he kept his head tilted down even as he watched Phil out of the corner of his eye. He had a lot of scars that Phil hadn't noticed before, old white lines across his shoulders and what looked like cigarette burns on his chest and ribs. When Phil shrugged the shirt off his shoulders and handed it over, the guy just folded it and carefully set it on the bench seat of the truck before looking up at Phil expectantly. Phil just shook his head.

“No, put it on.” Phil said, trying for encouraging but failing if the confused look he got was anything to go by. Phil grabbed the shirt, messing up the neat fold job and holding it out until the man reached out to cautiously took the garment for a second time. “This way you don't have to worry about messing up the seat, ok? Though I promise you, it's seen worse.”

It was a chance, to walk away from the man without physically putting him in the vehicle, but Phil didn't figure him for a runner. Bare feet, gravel road, he wouldn't get far and Phil figured he knew it. Sure enough, the other man had already pulled on the shirt, not bothering to button it before he scrambled in the passenger side, shutting the door carefully behind himself by the time Phil had circled around and settled himself behind the wheel.

Good. Small steps.

“Ready to go?”

“Yes, sir.”

“My name is Phil.” Phil said as he pulled the truck back onto the road, making a slow U-turn in the middle of the empty street. He didn't care how the guy addressed him - ‘sir’ was a hell of a lot better than most of the things that Tony called him - but he figured that introductions were in order. “You don't have to tell me your real name, but I'm going to need to call you something.”

“Clint.”

\---

Clint didn't know what the fuck was happening to him.

He risked a glance over at the driver. The men in the store had been talking about this guy, but they hadn't referred to him as 'Phil' before he came through the doors. They had called him the Vulture, and from the conversation with the shopkeeper Clint had been able to figure out that Phil was some kind of undertaker. The kind that ate the dead instead of burying them. And that he had been very, very interested in acquiring Clint.

Clint hadn’t ever worried about what would happen to his body once he died, except to think that he just didn't want to die yet. All the shit he had gone through, and he still wasn't ready to give up. Phil looked boring and honestly sort of nerdy at first glance - he wasn't drinking blood out of a skull or wearing clothes made out of human skin or any of the stereotypical images that jumped into Clint’s mind when he thought of cannibals. But Clint knew better than to take things at face value. After all, he had found himself suddenly riding in a truck that didn't have _any fucking tires_ but still seemed to drive around no problem even if the engine compartment was also mysteriously silent. Which meant that Phil was not only a cannibal, but also some kind of wizard.

Fuck face value.

Clint knew he had to find a way to convince Phil that he was worth keeping alive, even though Phil wouldn't have to worry about getting his money's worth since he had bought Clint for the sum total of a grin and a bunch of threats. It didn’t bode well. Clint had _thought_ that he was going to have a chance to earn his keep when his new owner started to take off his shirt in the middle of the street. The location wasn't the best, and Clint had felt the embarrassment rolling in his gut despite himself. But if his new owner wanted to try him out in broad daylight in the middle of town, Clint wasn't going to tell him no. The guys in the store had roughed Clint up pretty good earlier in the morning, but he knew that could at least keep his eyes closed and his mouth shut and take it. But he must have messed up somehow, because instead of fucking him or even doing a thorough inspection of his new property, Phil had just made him put the shirt on. Phil’s own shirt, which Clint just _knew_ he was currently ruining, and he didn’t even want to think about what counted as punishment when your new owner was a noted cannibal. Maybe he wouldn’t kill Clint outright. Maybe he would take him a piece at a time as Clint inevitably fucked up again and again.

It was a struggle, then, to keep his breathing steady. Clint resolutely kept his head down, sneaking glances out the window in between keeping his attention on Phil. There wasn’t much to see, just flat heat-choked landscape somewhere between a desert and a prairie. A few scrubby bushes and plains of dull colored grasses stretching out towards a jagged mountain range in the distance. Miles and miles of emptiness and no one to hear Clint scream. Clint noticed that his hands had begun to tremble in his lap, and he tried to keep his heart rate steady, tried to narrow his focus down to one thing. It was such a nice shirt. If Clint was going to get punished for messing it up then at least he was going to enjoy it while he could. The black and grey flannel was well-worn, faded by a lifetime of washes and too many hours in the sun. It was one of the softest things that Clint had ever been allowed to touch, the sleeves of it loose around enough around his wrists that Clint could hide his traitorous shaking hands up inside of them. Phil wasn't actually that much bigger than Clint, height wise, but he was obviously in much better shape. Well fed, Clint’s mind supplied, and he couldn't suppress his shudder.

“Everything alright?” Phil was pretending to watch the road, but Clint could still feel the man scrutinizing him as he shook his head. Clint didn’t know what he was supposed to do. He hadn’t been given any direction and this day just kept going from bad to worse but everything was alright, everything was fine, just as long as he got to keep all his fingers and didn’t have to help eat any dead people.

“I’m not actually a cannibal.” Phil said. It was starting to look like the guy could read minds too, because Clint was pretty sure he hadn’t said any of that out loud.

Clint just nodded. It wasn't like he was going to start arguing about definitions with the man who held his life in his hands. Clint had never been too smart with that stuff anyway. Maybe it didn’t count as cannibalism if you didn’t kill the person yourself? Maybe what Phil did was just considered scavenging. If Phil wasn’t the type to get his hands dirty with killing, Clint knew he stood a better shot at staying alive.

“What did you buy me for, then?” Clint asked “If you’re not gonna eat me.” Phil just sighed, shook his head, and Clint didn’t know why he had to keep fucking up when keeping this guy happy was literally a matter of life and death. Clint braced himself but the blow never came. Instead, Phil just said

“Didn’t really think that through, to be honest” Phil smiled, a little self-deprecating, most likely trying to lure Clint into a false sense of security. “Just  knew I had to get you out of there. I suppose you can help me with the fencing once you’re feeling better.”

And that...wasn’t the reply that Clint had been expecting. He had been anticipating something more along the lines of “to keep my cock warm,” but Phil was clearly a weird guy. Maybe he just didn’t want to be crude, the fencing thing was probably just an innuendo that Clint was too stupid to understand. So he just kept his mouth shut and nodded. Clint's first instinct had been to assure Phil that he felt fine, that he had been through much worse and he would be okay to do whatever Phil wanted him to, but. He had been dangerously insubordinate already and it would probably be worse for Clint to speak out of turn and correct Phil than to just let it go.

In the back of Clint’s traitorous brain, a voice whispered. _If he thinks you're hurt worse than you are, he might let his guard down. If he let's his guard down you might be able to make a run for it._ No matter that Clint didn't have any shoes, didn't have any idea where he was or where he could conceivably be able to run to. Once he started thinking about it he couldn't stop. The idea took hold like a weed. Phil would most likely chain Clint up again as soon as they got to wherever it was they were going, but if Clint could make a break for it -

“We’re almost there.” Phil said, and Clint heard something clicking, steady and rhythmic. It took him right up until Phil cranked the wheel to the right to realize that this guy had just used his damn turn signal. It was a sound that Clint hadn't heard in years. In addition to eating dead people, Phil was also apparently the type of weirdo who still used turn signals even though the truck was the only vehicle on the road out in the middle of nowhere. Even though the logical world had long since ended, and the truck itself was running on some kind of magic.

Phil must have caught Clint staring, because he shrugged his shoulders and said “Habit. Safety first, you know.”

Clint glanced away in a hurry, redirecting his gaze out through the windshield. The landscape had changed a little bit. Where there had been only shrubs and grass before, there were now trees scattered out across the field. The trunks and branches were bleached white, and Clint’s eyes were good enough that ue could see the little twigs, bare of leaves, reaching up into the dark red sky like grasping skeleton fingers. Because _of course_ the creepy cannibal guy would have creepy skeleton trees. There was a weird shimmering haze around the empty branches, but Clint figured that it was just a heat mirage or a dust cloud. It wouldn't be hot for long, though. There was a storm blowing in, big black thunderheads building up in front of them, and Clint could smell the sharp tang of ozone on the still air.  

The road curved then, and Clint stayed alert as the truck wound down through a cluster of dead trees into a low-lying area. There was a collection of buildings there - a square two-story farmhouse with faded paint and metal shutters on the windows, a barn, two old quonset hut swith a rolling doors on the end. Before Clint knew it, the truck was pulling to a stop alongside a jumble of other vehicles. A bunch of them were clearly dead, missing huge chunks of metal, but Clint noticed a few others that had the same kind of weird markings on them as Phil’s truck did. Huh.

“I live with some other people.” Phil said one he had parked, leaning his head back against the seat and looking Clint up and down. “I'm going to go in first and let them know what's going on. Then I'll come back out to get you, and we'll see about getting you something to eat.”

Clint just nodded, waited to be cuffed to the steering wheel or the door handle. Instead, Phil just grabbed the bag of clothes off the center of the seat and left Clint alone and unsecured while he made his way across the yard and up the steps of the house. Clint held his breath and waited thirty seconds. Then a minute.

Then he ran.

It was probably a mistake, but Clint figured that getting caught and killed and eaten would be better than going docile to the knife. At least he would die knowing that he had tried. The air was very still, calm and quiet in the way it always seemed to get before a big storm. In his head Clint prayed for rain, real rain, rain that was water and not something terrible. The gravel underneath his feet was sharp and hot from the sun, and Clint had made it most of the way to one of the hazy groves of dead trees when he heard the sound of a shotgun chambering a round behind him.

“Stop!”

Clint stopped, squeezing his eyes shut as if it could protect him from what was coming. Stupid, Clint berated himself. Stupid. He should have just kept running, should have welcomed the bullet in his back rather than wait for whatever hell he had invited on himself by trying to escape. But now that Clint had stopped, he found that he couldn't force himself to move again. The pounding heart and the gasping lungs and the aching body couldn't seem to get it together, too wracked with sudden terror to cooperate enough to move as a unit.

Then there was a great rustling sound all around him, like a gust of wind rifling through a field of grass even though the air around Clint was still and dead as it had been before the sound. Clint opened his eyes, and in that moment he was so unable to comprehend what he was seeing that he thought that maybe he had already been shot, had actually died, until he heard the voice behind him again.

“Back up slowly, okay? No sudden movements.” A woman was speaking to him, not Phil, even though Clint wanted to turn and look at her he couldn't. Glancing over his shoulder probably would have qualified as a ‘sudden movement’, but more than that, Clint was unable to tear his eyes away from the trees.

Everything happened next couldn't have taken more than a couple of seconds, but Clint felt time stretch around him like taffy. The dust that had been hanging in the air around the trees to had somehow started... vibrating, in the time between when Clint had closed his eyes and reopened then. His eyes couldn't focus on any one thing with the way the dust cloud was suddenly pulsating in front of him. Beating, like a heart. There was a papery rustling noise all around him as the cloud of dust shuddered, shivered in a wave and seemed to collapse in on itself. The only context Clint had for what happened next was the memory of being young and locked out of the trailer, sitting outside in the bitter cold and watching as ice crystallized on the surface of a lake. The branches of the trees started to grow sharp blades, shining metal that seemed to condense out of the air itself. Clint was struck dumb by the sudden strange beauty of it. The papery white bark of the trees as they sprouted death, a whirlwind of alien knives thrown into sharp relief against the dark grey thunderheads that were now looming up above him in the red sky. It was so hard to remember that the sky had ever been blue. It was so hard to remember that Clint had ever thought that he had a future.

“Don't. Move.” said the voice behind him, but it was too late.The branches seemed to bend as one, reaching out towards Clint with a blooming flower of scalpels. Clint’s felt cold metal brush against his cheek and then the blackness took him.


	2. Chapter 2

A pot of stew was simmering on the cast iron stove when Phil walked through the door, and it was a testament to how stressed he was by the whole situation that the smell of it just made him nauseous instead of ravenous. Pepper was up to her elbows in the oven as she brought it up to temperature for the bread dough that Bruce was kneading. She turned her head and smiled at him in greeting and Phil nodded back as he toed off his boots next to the door. Once he had set down the bag of shirts in the living room he made his way to the edge of the kitchen and leaned back against the bannister of the staircase.

“Is everyone around? We need to have a meeting.” Phil knew Clint would be welcomed once Phil had explained the situation, but he hadn't quite figured out how he was going to do that.

“Thor and Jane saw the storm coming and went out with the woolies.” Bruce said as he continued slapping the dough into a loaf shape before scoring the top in a wide diagonal pattern. Handling all the baking on the ranch was one of Bruce’s  _ things, _ the motions so well practiced that Bruce didn't even have to look at what he was doing “But Tony should be in once he gets done scrubbing the grease off his face, and I think Natasha’s upstairs.”

“Natasha’s right here, actually.” said the woman in question, and Phil craned his head backwards to see her coming down the stairs. Natasha stopped when her knees were just about level with Phil's head, looked down at him and then back up, out the window “Phil. Did you bring someone back with you?”

“Yes, that was what I wanted to talk abo-”

“He's running for the trees.” Natasha interrupted.

“Oh shit.” 

Pepper was the closest to the door and she sprang to action in an instant. The air in the room went cracking dry as Pepper pulled her hands out of the oven, shedding all of the excess heat into the open air as her skin cooled from molten orange back to it's regular pale pink. Phil took three quick steps, grabbed one of the guns off the rack and tossed it over the counter to Pepper in an easy arc. Pepper snatched it out of the air with both hands, swung the barrel down to point at the floor before she shouldered her way out of the screen door. 

Phil was thankful that Pepper knew him well enough that, if he threw her a weapon in a time of crisis, she could trust that she would probably need it and wouldn’t stop to ask questions. At least bullet wounds could be fixed, most of the time. The trees wouldn't be anywhere near as merciful if Clint made it that far.

“Go with Pepper, she'll need help carrying him in.” Natasha said as she vaulted over the banister and landed where Phil had been standing moments before. Natasha didn't need to specify that Clint would likely need to be carried because, chances were, he would either be too grievously injured to walk or he would be dead. “I'll help Bruce get ready.”

Even before Phil was all the way out the door he could tell there wasn't enough time, enough distance left for Pepper to catch up with Clint. Clint wasn't moving that fast, barefoot and limping, but he did have a head start. Pepper was well after him, not at all hobbled by her own lack of shoes. She left a trail of molten footsteps in the gravel, soles of her feet glowing dark red as she chased him down. 

Pepper skidded to a halt and shifted into a firing stance as Phil leaped down the porch steps. The sound of the gun chambering the round was enough to stop Clint in his tracks, but even at a distance Phil could see that Clint had already gotten too close. It still gave Phil goosebumps every time the defence system activated. Maybe it was because he knew what was coming. 

The sound of it was like a gust of wind crashing through a dry forest. For some reason it always made Phil think of the seconds of stasis between when a river crashed over the cliff and when it met with the pool below, that one moment of waterfall. Pepper tried to coax Clint into backing up out of range without spooking the trees even more, but Clint had gone tharn. 

The fractal geometry of the nanomachines crystalizing from thin air was always startling, steel blooming out of  branches that had been bare moments before. Undeniable and strange, natural math reaching out it’s killer greeting as the trees zeroed in on the intruder signal. Phil felt his skin sizzle with useless adrenaline, and he was powerless to do anything except watch as Clint collapsed into a heap on the dusty ground. The trees hummed in greeting, sounding like a hive of happy bees when Pepper and Phil ran towards Clint’s downed figure. The blades drew away from them and dissipated back into a hazy swarm of nanomachines when the sensors in the trees recognized their friendly presence. 

Much to their shared surprise, Clint was still alive when Phil rolled him over onto his back. Clint must have passed out, neutralized himself before the trees could fully lock on and go for the jugular. Breathing seemed stable, if a little shaky, and the only serious damage seemed to be the three cuts on the left side of Clint’s face where the tree had touched him, straight and deep and perfectly parallel with one another. There was - there was a lot of blood. Phil could see the thin layers of fat and muscle through the grisly flaps of skin, the white bone beneath. One good thing about the type of damage done by the nanomachines was that the cuts they left were very clean, almost surgical in nature. Everyone in the house could remember the times Tony had accidentally learned that first hand, back when he had been creating the defense system. 

By design, intruders weren't meant to survive an encounter with the trees. If they did, well, at least the wounds were easy enough to piece back together.

The first rumblings of thunder crept around the heavy clouds as Pepper and Phil carried Clint inside and laid him out on the kitchen table. Phil had known that Clint was skinny, maybe even bordering on malnourished, but his limp body was still shockingly light. Then Phil went back to kick his boots off,  _ again, _ and watched as Bruce and Natasha got down to business.

Bruce used a glass of water to clean the skin around the cuts, removing the little bits of dirt and gravel that had stuck to the Clint’s face when he had fallen, washing blood and debris across the wood of the table. Meanwhile, Natasha sliced Phil’s shirt off of Clint. She cut quick tears up under the armpits on each side and peeled the fabric back to do a quick once-over and check for other injuries. Phil could have sworn he saw Natasha’s always inscrutable gaze stutter as she revealed the constellation of old cigarette burns on Clint’s torso, but she moved on without saying anything.

The room smelled like a bakery in hell, with the yeasty smell of fresh bread in the oven mixing with the slaughterhouse scent of fresh wet flesh. It was giving Phil a headache, a situation that wasn't exactly improved upon by Tony’s belated arrival. Tony was still wiping his hands off on a towel when he came into the kitchen, damp hair stuck up in all directions, but he had not, in fact, managed to get all of the grease off his face.

“Ran around to watch from the side yard once I heard the system kick on.” Tony said by way of explanation before anyone could ask. “At least now I know that the new hypnosis algorithm is effective.”

“Jesus Christ, Tony.”

“What? None of you would help me test it. I have to get data somehow, so props to...that guy.”

“How do you know he was hypnotized and not just scared?” Natasha countered from where she was helping hold the cuts steady for Bruce to stitch. 

“....I could just ask him when he wakes up?”

“Who is this guy, anyway?” Bruce asked, tongue stuck out from between his teeth as he cut another length of the thread. 

(Phil remembered things like superglue and butterfly bandages from before the Change. Either of those would have been a better option, but things like that had run out a long time ago. So, stitches it was.)

Deciding it would be best to start at the beginning, Phil lead with “His name is Clint. He was chained to Sitwell’s radiator,” and told them how everything had happened before finally ending with “I told him to wait in the truck while I came to talk to you. I don’t know why he ran.”

Phil saw Pepper and Natasha share the briefest of looks over the table, his only warning before Pepper reached out and slapped Phil gently on the back of the head.

“Of course he ran, Phil. He thinks you want to eat him.”

“I  _ said _ that I told him that I'm not a cannibal the ride back!” Phil tried to defend himself, knowing it would be futile. He was already kicking himself enough. Leaving Clint alone in the truck had been uncharacteristically poor judgement on his part.

“Really?” Tony prodded “You really don't think you were sending mixed signals? You flat out told Sitwell that you wanted to take Clint so that you could go all Hannibal Lecter on him. No way he's going to take you at your word after hearing that.”

“Done.” Bruce said, cutting the argument short as Natasha taped a clean square of linen over the three rows of stitches. 

Clint was still completely out of it but he didn't seem to be going into shock, so Natasha ran a dry cloth over him briskly. It would be best to let him clean the caked on layers of grime off himself when he woke up, she said, rather than violate his privacy any more than they already had. From there it was all logistics and manhandling. Pepper lifted Clint easily, moving him down the hall to Fury’s vacant room. Bruce got back to the business of cooking. Natasha went to get the flour out of the truck. Tony drifted away to finish scrubbing the grease off his face.

Phil cleaned.

The newly shredded shirt had started to cling to the table where it was wet with blood lymph. When he peeled the fabric away there were sticky Rorschach smears left behind on the wood. The water in the sink went red and filmy when Phil rinsed it out, and the former shirt was immediately repurposed into a rag as Phil did an initial pass over the table, scrubbing the blood off before it could set. He swept the loose dirt and bits of gravel and the tiny tails of cut string into his cupped hand, went outside and threw the detritus off the porch into the scraggly weeds that sprouted around the foundation of the house. 

He paused for a minute, took a few deep breaths of the still air to try and clear the scent of blood from his head. Fresh ozone tickled the hairs in his nose and the latent electricity in the air made Phil’s spine tingle. The storm hadn’t cracked open yet but the threat of rain was imminent. Heavy clouds, so dark grey that they were almost black, had covered the sky and thrown a solid wall of shadow over the landscape. The thunder was starting to rumble in earnest, deep rolling booms that seemed to pick up momentum as they chased each other across the valley, accompanied by flashes of lightning that lit the clouds up from within.

Phil knew that he was going to have to have a very long talk with Clint whenever the other man woke up. There were a lot of things that needed to be explained. It would be tempting to start with Tony’s trees, but Phil figured it would be better to lead with the fact that Clint wasn't going to have to worry about anyone eating him or raping him or using him as an ashtray or any of the other fucking awful things that Clint would be anticipating.

The fresh air wasn't doing much to help anymore.

Pepper had commandeered the rag by the time that Phil went back inside. The glass bottle of vinegar was perched too close to the edge of the counter for Phil’s comfort, but the sharp tang of it in the air helped to scour away the other smells.

“I was going to do that.” Phil said as he crossed into the kitchen, moved the vinegar bottle back from the precipice. Much better.

“I know.” Pepper replied, grinning at him as she tossed the rag underhanded into the sink. “That’s why I did it.”

“Speaking of doing it,” Tony piped up from the hall “Why is he in Fury’s room? Shouldn't he be bunking with his new best buddy Phillip?”

“Fury’s not due back for another month or so, and it’s the only empty room on the ground floor.”

“Whatever.” Tony said, waving a hand dismissively “But what if Phil gets hungry in the middle of the night? He can-”

“Tony.” Pepper cut in.

“- explain again how we totally, definitely, absolutely would never ever consume the flesh of human beings.”

“Speaking of,” Bruce said, mild voice carrying even over the clatter of the bowls that Pepper was pulling down from the cabinet “Supper’s ready if any of you want eat.”

\---

Clint woke up all at once, gripped by an all-consuming terror that had him clenching his eyes shut and curling in on himself. There was a loud  _ shuuuusssh _ -ing noise all around him and Clint didn’t even bother to breathe as he waited to die. It was only when he heard a boom of thunder that he realized that it was the sound of a storm that had frightened him and not the awful blades of the trees. 

He remembered, then, what had happened. What he had done.

The left side of Clint's face was a throbbing checkerboard made of alternating spaces of pain and numbness. His feet felt raw and hot and his body was the usual chorus of aches and pains, but he was alive. After the stunt he had pulled, there was no way that Clint should have been alive. 

Clint tried to take stock of the situation, moving as little as possible. It was dim in the room and a single lantern on the bedside table threw everything into long orange shadows - a desk and a chair pushed into one corner, a bookshelf with a scattering of paperbacks, a low dresser along the wall by the door with a big bowl resting on top. There was a window on the wall across from him, cracked open just enough to let in a gentle breeze of cool, damp air. It was too dark outside for Clint to really see the rain, but he could smell the water and the fresh earth outside. 

It wasn't until Clint realized he was eye level with the windowsill that it occurred to him that he wasn’t looking  _ up _ at everything like he usually was. He wasn't laying on the floor. He was in a bed.

Clint felt his heart stutter in his chest, hands going cold as he felt down his body. The shirt was gone, of course, but he still had the shorts on which was weird. Weirder still was the blanket that had been wrapped around Clint while he was out of it. Fuzzy brown fabric that was even softer than Phil’s shirt had been, the blanket was warm with trapped body heat and faintly itchy on his bare skin.  _ Not allowed, _ his mind hissed at him. But even though all of his instincts were screaming at him to get out of the bed and back onto the floor where he belonged, Clint couldn’t move. He couldn't feel any restraints, no chains or rope to hold him down, but the sudden overwhelming fear kept him pinned in place. 

What was he supposed to do? Clint’s mind raced. Was he meant to stay where he had been put as a sign of obedience, or would it be better to get on the floor to show that he knew his place? Indecision kept Clint motionless as he fumbled over his options, helpless to know which would result in the worse punishment. And what that punishment would be. Discipline could come in many forms, but in Clint’s experience reprisal was painful and predictable. If he fucked up, he got hurt. Most people weren’t very imaginative about it, but Clint had never been this disobedient, this  _ bad _ before either. That wasn’t even taking into account the fact that his new owner was a known cannibal. 

It was only long years of practice that allowed Clint to keep still when he heard the creaking floorboards that signaled approaching footsteps, to keep his breathing even and feign sleep while he watched through his eyelashes. By the time the door cracked open, Clint was so nauseous with fear and anticipation that he would have puked had his stomach not been empty for days.

It wasn't a very large room, and Clint was able to get a good look at the woman who had entered. She was tall, with long straight hair that was made even more orange by the glow of the lantern.The woman was wearing the same kind of clothes as Phil - a pair of jeans and a waffle weave shirt that was identical to the one that Phil had worn under the flannel that he had removed for Clint. She was probably Phil’s woman, then. Wife or...whatever. Clint had to suppress a shiver when he remembered Phil saying something about living with other people. It was always worse to be shared property than to have a signal owner, and there would be others besides this woman. A whole nest of cannibals.

The woman watched Clint out of the corner of her eye as she collected the bowl from the dresser, walked back out of the room but left the door ajar behind her. The only thing that Clint could hear was the pounding of his heart, the rushing blood in his head that muffled even the incessant pounding of the rain. It was such an obvious test, even more obvious than the open window, that Clint couldn’t believe he even considered it. 

What would he do, if he managed to make it out of the room, out of the house, out into the rain? Run right back into the trees? Maybe he could hide out in the row of junk cars and find something sharp...wait until Phil or the woman came looking for him. Take whoever he caught hostage and then - the line of thinking fizzled out. No way it would work. Clint wasn't suicidal, contrary to his recent behavior. He wanted to live so badly that he was almost sick with it.

The traitorous line of thinking was cut short when the woman came back into the room. She wasn't paying him much attention anymore, either didn't know or didn't care that Clint was awake. She had returned with the bowl, but now she had a towel slung over one shoulder as well - the basin sounded heavier when she set it back on the dresser, but there was no way for Clint to know what was inside. She was humming to herself, a low tune that Clint didn't recognize, as she pushed the sleeves of her shirt up to just above her elbows, put one of her hands into the basin. Clint heard the liquid splash a little bit, saw steam start to rise from the bowl before the woman withdrew her hand. It didn’t make any sense until suddenly it did _. _

Oh, _ fuck _ . 

Her skin was glowing from within, a gradient of oranges and yellows that swirled from her fingertips up to her wrist, and Clint could feel the radiating heat coming off of her hand in waves. A choked off noise of terror escaped from Clint before he could help himself and the woman spun to face him. Her eyes and both of her hands were suddenly filled with fire, her skin molten from her fingertips and forearms all the way up to her elbows.

Clint jolted and tried to scramble away but he was caught in the blanket. He panicked even worse at the restriction, only managing to tangle himself more irreparably before he flopped off of the bed and thumped face first onto the hard wooden floor. The impact clacked his teeth together and a white hot bolt of agony shot through the left side of his face. Clint rolled over onto his side as tried to breathe through the pain. The woman was coming towards him then, and even though her arms had stopped glowing Clint still tried to cower away. 

“Shhh, it's okay.” The woman crouched down next to Clint but didn't reach for him. “You're safe here.”

“I’m s-sorry.” Clint scrambled backwards until his spine pressed up against the wall and he had nowhere left to go. The woman's mouth set into a thin line and Clint cringed. “I'm so sorry, please don’t burn me. Please don't eat me. I swear I can be good. I'll do better, I'll do anythi-”

Clint had watched the woman's expression get harder as he kept running his mouth, but Clint couldn’t seem to stop himself. The best thing to do probably would have been to shut up and take what he had coming to him, but no one had ever accused Clint of being smart. Only the arrival of another person skidding into the room at top speed managed to get Clint to shut up.

“Pepper? What happened, I heard a crash and-” The new arrival, who was also not Phil, stopped to assess the scene - Clint tangled up in the blanket, the woman (who must have been Pepper) crouched down next to him. “Oh, looks like sleeping beauty is finally awake.”

“Everything’s fine Tony.” Pepper looked away from Clint, over her shoulder at the new arrival. Both of their body languages relaxed as something passed wordlessly between them. “I startled Clint and he fell out of the bed.”

The guy with the goatee, Tony, was as unremarkable as the rest of them at first glance. Although his clothes were far dirtier, he wore pretty much the same thing as Phil and Pepper. (What the hell was it with these people and the matching? Was it some type of cannibal cult requirement?) The only thing that set Tony apart at first glance besides his height, or more specifically lack thereof, was the soft blue light glowing on his chest underneath the shirt. Compared to all the other batshit things that Clint had encountered in the past twenty-four hours, it was almost a relief. Protection talismans were rare and dangerous, despite the name, but at least it was something that Clint had seen before.

Tony crossed his arms over his chest, obscuring the light from the talisman. He wasn't didn’t look angry, yet, but Clint knew that he had been caught staring. 

“Bruce isn't gonna be happy if he ripped his stitches.”

Clint’s head was whirling with all of the names - first there had been Phil, then Pepper and Tony, and now someone called Bruce. How many people were there in this place? Worse yet, what would they all be expecting of Clint now that he was awake? Clint shivered at the thought, barely daring to look up.

“Why are you scared of Pepper? Did you see her do the -” Tony flailed his arms a little bit, made a  _ whooosh _ -ing noise “It's awesome, isn't it? Super useful by the way, did you know she can get hot enough to-”

“Tony.” Pepper cut him off, but even though her tone was short Clint thought that she looked a lot more relaxed than she had been moments ago when Clint had been begging her for mercy.

“It's providential, not contagious if that's what’s got you so worried. Pepper is perfectly safe unless you piss her off...”

It hadn’t sounded like a question, but Tony seemed to be expecting an answer. He was looking hard at Clint, and Clint struggled not to shrink back even further under his scrutiny. Of course he wouldn't do anything to piss Pepper off - Clint was going to try very, very hard not to piss  _ anyone _ off. But Clint knew that his recent bad behavior hadn’t exactly made the best first impression and Tony had no reason to believe that he wasn't going to be the worst type troublemaker. Clint took a shaky breath, looked back and forth between their faces a couple of times before he managed to nod.

Seeming pleased with his response, Tony barreled on “So you know how there are binary star systems, right? And then there are places on the earth where the mantle is closer to the surface?”

“Um…” Clint shook his head, very confused, but his understanding didn't seem to actually be necessary.

“Long story short is that some guy tried to put a Word on Pepper. Did. Did put a Word on Pepper.” Tony looked far away and sad for a split second before he grinned again. “But it didn’t work out quite like he'd planned. And now Pepper is hot, way hot, even hotter than she used to be, which is saying something.”

Pepper pulled the towel off of her shoulder snapped the fabric at Tony who yelped, jumping back a step as Pepper smiled and left the towel on the dresser next to the bowl.

“You can wash yourself off.” She said “We'll give you some privacy, go let Phil know you're awake.”

Tony squaked, indignant. “But I haven't even had a chance to ask him about the hypnosis algorithm. How did you feel when you saw the swarm pulsation patterning? Regular type of adrenaline cortisol flight response, or was it more like you wanted to chill out? Kick back with a cold one and see what was going to - Pepper! Let me just -”

Clint was saved from having to respond to this new line of gibberish by Pepper, who managed to hustle Tony out of the room. She hooked out her foot to knock the door shut behind them and the frame rattled a bit with the impact. Clint held his breath as he listened to their footsteps recede. Then he was alone again.

Out from under the scrutiny of strangers Clint quickly extracted himself from the blanket, folding it neatly before putting it back on the bed. The water in the basin wasn't steaming anymore, but it was still warm once Clint worked up the nerve to dip a finger in. Clint had learned back in Alleghany that it was a bad idea to trust anything that had been interfered with by technomancers or moritifiers. But Clint couldn’t remember the the last time he had washed off in anything other than a fetid pond or a freezing river. When was the last time he had gotten clean at all? Hell, the water in the basin was clearer than most of the water he  _ drank _ .

When Clint leaned caught his reflection in the bowl he was taken aback by how rough he looked. His hair had been shorn off weeks ago, when Harlan had used it as part of a trade with a Demiurge who lived in an old weigh station. The group needed a safe rite of passage through the territory and Clint, who was used to being traded in other ways, hadn’t minded giving up his hair to the man with the goat’s eyes. The patchy shave job had started to grow back, and jagged growth seemed to highlight how skinny and sunken Clint’s face looked. Someone had cleaned only the left side of his face and there was a square of white fabric taped over his cheekbone where the dull throbbing was coming from. Clint poked at it to try and investigate but then he snatched his hand back with a hiss, taking deep careful breaths as the pain set off static and phantom starbursts in front his eyes.

Alright, enough fucking around.

It wouldn’t matter what he looked like if Phil came in to find that Clint had ignored a command. Clint was injured, terrified, surrounded by a house full of cannibals, but he was also great at compartmentalizing. One thing at a time, and everything that wasn’t an immediate issue got put to the side. Clint had a direct order to wash himself off so that was what he was going to do. Besides, it was in his vested interest to try make himself as appealing as possible, in the hopes that Phil and the others would let him earn his keep in a way that didn't involve ending up as food.

Clint stripped off the shorts and got down to the business of cleaning himself. It didn’t take long for the water in the bowl to go from clear to swirling pink to filthy brown, completely opaque. His skin itched as the grime was removed, stinging sharply when he washed over the open welts. The towel was going to be a complete loss once he was done with it, but all Clint could do was mentally shrug and hope that he wouldn't get beaten too badly. He had been told to use it, after all. 

The warmth of the water was so nice that he couldn't help but relax a little. It was a reward that Clint had done nothing to earn, but they were probably too worried about him trying to run again to do the logical thing and kick him outside to wash in the driving rain. Still didn't explain why the woman had bothered to heat the water. Show of power, probably. It had certainly worked.

(Clint remembered that, before the change, people had been able to choose the temperature of their water by choosing different knobs. Rumor had it that there were some enclaves on the western coast where such a thing was still possible. But for the past decade of Clint’s life hot water had only been possible with the manual labor of hauling it and heating it over a fire. It was the type of work that he had done plenty of times but never for his own benefit.)

When the knock came at the door Clint just about jumped out of his skin. How distracted had he been, that he hadn’t kept one ear open for approaching footsteps? Sloppy. Careless.

“Clint? I'm coming in.”

Clint was already naked, so he didn't have to take any clothes off when Phil came through the door. He just kept his head down and waited to be examined, trying not to shiver too much as the cool breeze coming through the window wicked away the last traces of water from his skin. This part, at least, was something that Clint was used to and knew how to deal with. The moment sat, stretched uncomfortably as nothing happened. When the anxiety finally got to be too much for him, Clint hazarded a glance up. 

Phil had stopped in the doorway holding a jumble of fabric, face set in a firm, displeased expression. It disappeared when he saw Clint look up at him, morphing into a forced smile. Unsure, Clint tried to smile back. He was pretty sure his effort at it was even worse.

“These are for you.” Phil came forward into the room and held the fabric in his arms out like a peace offering. Clint took it, hesitant until he realized that it was just clothes - one of the same waffle-weave shirts and a pair of faded drawstring pants that had been manufactured before the Change if the American flag print was anything to go by.

“Get dressed,” Phil told him. Clint moved immediately to comply, and his hands only shook a little bit when Phil said “Then follow me to the kitchen. We need to talk.”

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Up Next: A conversation is (finally) had
> 
> Feel free to ask questions if you have them! I may not answer them directly if it is going to give away plot stuff, but - knowing the types of things that readers are confused by/wondering about will help me be less confusing. Also, I just really love talking to people!


	3. Chapter 3

 

Once Clint had finished getting dressed Phil ushered him out of Fury’s room, led the way out into the main area of the house. It wasn't as claustrophobic as a lot of old buildings - the hallways were cramped with doors, but the kitchen and dining room and living area were mostly open to one another. Clear lines of sight from corner to corner, which Phil had always appreciated.

The north wall of the dining room was decorated by the maze-like neon green sigil that forbade the entrance of insects and vermin inot the house. One of Bruce’s inventions. It was garish as hell, but it worked great. Phil had gotten so used to it that he almost never noticed it anymore. Clint, on the other hand, was staring at it with his mouth hanging open.

Phil looked around the area again with new eyes, trying to notice what else might stand out to someone seeing it for the first time. There were a lot of tacky rooster figurines on top of the kitchen cabinets that no one had the heart to remove, and one of the cabinet doors was white when the rest were brown. The living room was currently empty of other people but, at a glance, it was clearly well lived in. Phil observed the neat row of shoes and boots by the front door, a couple of jackets slung over the backs of chairs, the blanket jumbled on the end of the couch where Pepper liked to sit and read. The pair of work gloves and the fencing tool were still balanced on the side table, just where Phil had left them before he had gone to town.

Everything was sort of scuffed and battered, frayed on the edges and patched up in places. It wasn't like they could take a trip to the city and go furniture shopping.

Phil herded Clint forward until they were at the kitchen table, and he experienced a moment of weirdness where reality seemed to double and overlap itself. Phil could see both the current reality of Clint standing by the table with his shoulders hunched and his eyes on the ground, but it was overlaid with the memory-image of Clint laying on top of the same table with his face slack and bloody. Then Phil blinked and the phantom memory was gone. Disconcerting, but it didn’t feel like a real omen so Phil ignored it.

The chair squeaked a little as Phil dragged it out, wooden legs skidded across the floor. Phil saw the distrust in Clint’s eyes as he looked sideways at it. “Go ahead and sit.” Phil watched as Clint hesitated, seeming uncertain and checking Phil's face for clues before he finally moved forward and sat on the chair.

Well, ‘sat on’ was a generous description. Clint crouched on the edge of it, balanced on his heels, barely leaning against or touching the chair any more than was absolutely necessary, looking like he was going to jump off as soon as Phil turned his back. Phil listened for the scrape of wood or running footsteps, but he didn't hear anything other than Clint’s shallow breathing as Phil walked away into the kitchen.

The pot of stew was still steaming a bit when Phil ladled a scoop into one of the heavy ceramic bowls. Rich brown broth, chunks of meat, slices of carrots and potatoes. It smelled deliciouss, and Phil's mouth watered again even though he'd already eaten his fill. Phil debated on the possibility of overstuffing Clint, who clearly hadn't eaten much recently, but went ahead and grabbed a piece of the crusty bread off the sideboard anyways.

When Phil turned around with the food, Clint had gone pale and shaky. His eyes were as big as saucers and he clutching his knees tightly, not even blinking as he watched Phil’s approach like a trapped animal. Phil couldn't help the sigh that escaped when he made his way back to the table, set down the bowl. Clint flinched when the ceramic clacked against the table.

“First things first. None of us are cannibals.”

“Yessir.” Clint said, eyes glued to the floor now that Phil was standing next to him.

“I need you to trust me Clint. The cannibal thing is just a rumor just keeps people from poking around.” Phil rubbed at the back of his neck, wondering how much he should explain up front and deciding that most of it could wait until Clint had some food in him. “I promise the stew is basically mutton.”

“Um.”

“What?”

Another moment of hesitation before Clint mumbled, almost too quiet to be heard “ _Basically_?”

Phil could have kicked himself. He tried to think of a way to clarify without sounding even more suspicious, but was saved by Natasha. Phil hadn't heard her come in, and neither had Clint judging by the way he went tense when she spoke up from behind him.

“Woolies. Imagine a sheep crossed with a bison.” Natasha said. “That's what we raise here. Really big, really fuzzy. They're delicious and they aren't people, so eat up before it gets cold.”

Clint took a deep breath, but he didn't turn around to see who had spoken. Another couple of seconds ticked by before he picked up the spoon and started eating. Natasha stayed standing a couple of feet behind Clint while Phil pued out the chair directly across from him. Clint hesitated when Phil sat at the table, casting nervous glances up like he was worried that the permission to eat would be revoked as he used the last hunk of bread to wipe the last drops of soup from the inside of the bowl. Then he sat back in his chair, looking at Phil expectantly.

“Yes, Clint?”

Clint ducked his head, eyes on his knees again “Sorry sir.”

“It's alright to ask questions.” Phil said, and even though Clint didn't look like he believed it at least he had raised his head. Phil tried to reassure him “I said that you needed to trust me. And part of building trust is knowing you can come to me when you're confused.”

Phil watched as Clint twisted his hands together before he asked

“Why does everyone here wear the same clothes?”

Phil was caught off guard, laughed despite himself. That was not the question he had been expecting.

“A friend of ours brought us a crate worth of these shirts a while back.” Phil picked at the frayed hem of his own, noticed the way that Clint’s shirt hung loose around his arms and chest. “And when we have to order things from town we try to keep it simple, not draw too much attention.”

Phil saw Natasha roll her eyes at him over Clint’s head. Phil knew that he was a little paranoid but it wasn't a bad idea to try and keep the truth of their ranks obscured, especially given how well they were set up on the ranch. Sitwell’s head wasn’t so far up his ass that he wouldn't have noticed if Phil ordered seven different sizes and styles of each clothing item - it didn’t hurt to be careful. Anyways, it wasn't like there were more than 3 things to choose from at a time since the re-emergence of manufacturing was still in it’s infancy.

It hadn’t been the most expansive explanation but Clint just nodded. “Can I ask another question?”

“Of course.”

“How many people live here?”

Phil was so used to obscuring the facts when dealing with outsiders that he had to pause, gather his thoughts so he didn't trip out the standard bullshit response. It could be bad, if Phil revealed the truth of their numbers to Clint only to have the other man leave and trade that info somewhere down the line. But if Clint was going to stay, and Phil hoped that he would, there needed to be a foundation of trust.

“There's Pepper and Tony who you met earlier. The woman standing behind you is Natasha, and her partner Bruce was the one that sewed up your face. Thor and Jane are out with the woolies right now. And myself, of course.”

“So…” Clint had been ticking up his fingers as Phil spoke. “Seven?”

“Well, there are five other people who live here part of the year when they aren't traveling throughout the territory. Three or four more who stop by less frequently”

“Twelve, then. Or… maybe sixteen?”

Phil nodded. He didn't understand why Clint suddenly looked like he wanted to be sick, the lines of his body gone still and taught.

“Do I belong to everyone who lives here? Or do I just belong to you?” Clint asked, so quiet that Phil could barely hear him.

“You don't belong to us Clint. You don't belong to anyone.” Phil could have kicked himself - he really should have lead with this part of the conversation, but he’d gotten sidetracked trying to convince Clint that they weren’t cannibals.

“I don’t understand.”

“We don't keep slaves here, it's not our way.”

Clint nodded, not looking any less sick as he diverted his eyes again. “So you're selling me on, then.”

“No.” Phil took a deep breath, picked his words carefully and tried not to be too furious with the world. “There aren't many laws in this territory to start with, and there aren't any regarding slavery. It's decided by individuals. Understand?” Phil waited for Clint’s slight nod of assent before he continued. “As a group, we believe that people shouldn't be property. We aren't going to sell you, because as far as we're concerned you don't belong to us. You don't belong to anyone except yourself.”

“Yessir.”

That was… Phil hadn't expected such easy acceptance of the news from Clint, who had been nothing but cautious and distrustful. Not that Phil held it against him. Chances were that Clint didn't really believe him anyway, and was just agreeing out of habit, but Phil couldn't demand Clint’s trust or belief. It was going to take time to prove the truth of his words.

“Do I have to leave tonight, or can I wait until the sun comes up?” Clint had twisted his hands together in front of him where they rested by the empty bowl. Clint glanced over, looking out the window where the rain was still pouring down for a second before he looked back at Phil.

“You don't have to leave at all, you can stay here as long as you like. There are plenty of things you can do around the place to earn your keep. But if you do decide you want to leave we can give you some supplies and a ride to the edge of the territory.” Phil paused. “But winter will be here soon. And to be plain, you aren't in any condition to try and travel overland on foot.”

Clint nodded and seemed to be thinking hard. Phil and Natasha shared a look. No one would stop Clint from leaving if he wanted to go, Phil had been serious about that. That didn't change the fact that sending him out on his own would be as good as a death sentence.

“If I stay, what would I be doing?”

“That depends. What do you enjoy doing?”

“What I'm told?” Clint shrugged “Not sure what you mean by that, sir.”

“Do you have any particular skills?”

“Getting fucked.” Clint said so fast it had to be an automatic response, and Phil blinked slowly at him as Clint hunched his shoulders.

“I think you know that's not really what I meant.” Phil leaned back in the chair, stretched his legs out “More along the lines of - Are there certain things that you prefer to do or not do when given a choice? Any skills in particular?”

Phil could have kicked himself for that last question, sure that Clint was going to take it in a sexual direction again. Clint just opened and closed his mouth a few times, seeming hesitant to respond or unsure of his answer until he finally said

“Just chores, physical labor stuff. I was serious before. I'll do whatever you tell me to.” Clint’s voice was fervent, and Phil didn't know if Clint was trying to convince Phil of himself of the fact. “And…” Clint faltered, losing the determination as he cast his gaze down, seemed to be waiting. Weighing his words before he finally said “I'm good at climbing. And back, before. I was a real good shot with a bow and arrow.”

“Before what?”

“The Change.”

“Really?” Phil leaned forward, curious despite himself - knowledge was power, after all. “Did the Change somehow affect your marksmanship abilities?”

“Ha!” Clint clapped one of his hands over his mouth after the laugh escaped, looking chagrined. He seemed to be opening up a little bit, a good sign. “I mean no, sir. It's just that slaves aren't supposed to be armed. So after I was bonded in I didn't get to shoot anymore.”

“Ah. And where was it that you were bonded in?”

“Texarkana.” Clint said, and the lie was so well practiced that Phil might not have caught it if he hadn't been paying close attention.

When the Change happened, all cross-country lines of communication had dissolved overnight. It had been natural for slang to develop differently in separate parts of the country. Slavery had become depressingly common, and while it wasn't ubiquitous there were as many different terms for it as there were regional dialects.

People from the Cascade Provinces only ever called it ‘indenturement’, which Phil personally thought was a little like putting lipstick on a pig. The Shiprocker Nomads referred to it as being ‘folded’ or ‘salvaged’ depending on the age on the person being enslaved. Texarkanans said ‘thralled’, possibly ‘foundered’ if they were from closer to the coast of the Grey Gulf. But using the phrase ‘bonded in’ was only prevalent in what had once been New England.

Phil folded his hands in front of himself and leaned back against the chair. Would be better to call Clint out on his lie directly or let him come clean on his own? Before Phil could quite decide how to handle the attempted deception, Natasha spoke up from behind Clint.

“Lying. He's from the east. Alleghany Empire.”

Which was... way more specific than Phil had been able to deduct, but that was hardly surprising. After all, a big chunk of their knowledge about farflung regions and provincial customs had come from Natasha

All the color drained from Clint’s face as he was called out on the lie, and he turned slightly towards Natasha. He only glanced at her for a second before he lowered his eyes and raised a closed fist to press the back of it against the center of his forehead. Phil saw Clint swallow hard before he murmured

“Apologies, Hariolate.”

“Hariolate?” Phil echoed. The word was distantly familiar, but no immediate definition sprang to mind. Phil cocked an eyebrow at Natasha, who shook her head.

“The Alleghany warlord and a lot of his commanders are like Fury. ‘Hariolate’ is just the Alleg term for many-eyed oracles.” She said to Phil before turning her attention back to Clint. Clint looked up cautiously as Natasha pulled her bandana off, letting her hair fall free and revealing that her forehead was clear of extra eyes. “I'm no oracle. Just observant. I saw the symbol mixed in with your burn marks in a couple places.”

“Alleghany Empire..” Phil muttered as his mind ticked over the details he knew. He hadn't looked too hard at the grim field of burn marks along Clint’s side, but as Phil thought back he could remember a spot where there had been four circular marks in a square, an additional burn on both the left and right sides. He hadn’t recognized it at the time, but now the knowing clicked in his mind. “That’s the Neo-luddite militia cult over in the Northeast. Lead by some guy who calls himself the ‘Red Father’?”

Clint turned back so he was fully facing Phil again, even if he didn't seem as comfortable with Natasha lurking behind him as he had before. He took his hand away from his forehead to fidget with the spoon. “I don’t know what that other word means, sir. But I do know about Red Father.”

“And?” Phil prodded.

Natasha stalked silently around the corner of the table and pulled out the chair next to Phil, spinning it on one leg so that she could straddle it rest her elbows on the backrest. She and Clint watched each other cautiously throughout. Or, Clint watched her cautiously and Natasha smirked a little bit as she got comfortable. It was only once she was settled again that Clint shifted in his own chair, sat up straighter and squared his shoulders, broke the staring contest so that his eyes fixed on some point far away over Phil’s shoulder.

“When the old God died, it gave Red Father four new eyes so that he could see the way. In time, Red Father's right hand saw the coming of the glass storm. In time, his left hand saw the withering of the crops and the fouling of the groundwater. It was he who confined the wraiths inside of the great reactors and unified the land. It is only through his guidance that we are kept safe and brought to order.” It seemed that Clint was reciting something he had been drilled with many times - the words sounded practiced, but not particularly sincere.

“May those who -” Clint paused with a look on his face as if the words were poison on his tongue. Natasha slid in to finish the chant before Clint could regain his place.

“May those who oppose him be unmade. May those who are obedient be made again.”

Clint’s shoulders slumped as Natasha finished the chant. He looked down, fisted his hands in the hem of the shirt. It drew tight stretched over his thin frame. “This place isn't Empire, though.” he said, sounding sure of it almost despite himself. “How do you know that stuff?”

“I've been around.” Natasha said lightly, flicking a lock of hair between her fingers as she examined Clint. “And you have too if you've made it this far west"

Clint shrugged his shoulders, looking away.

“So you lived on the east coast before the Change?” Phil asked

“Sort of. Me and my brother Barney were part of a traveling circus, so we kinda lived all over. We were somewhere in backwoods New Jersey when the Change came and everything went crazy. Some of the circus people found an old fallout shelter in the woods and we. We stayed there. For a couple of years.”

It was obvious from the guilty shift of his eyes that Clint was hiding something, but Phil just made a mental note of it and didn't press. All in good time.

“Then our group crossed paths with some Alleghany scouts.” Clint frowned slightly, eyebrows furrowing together when he said “People don't have a choice when the Empire expands over them, not really. It's join or die. Barney told me that the scouts were going to kill us all unless I went with them as tribute, so I did.”

“Did it work?” Natasha asked

“No idea.” Clint replied. “I never saw my brother or any of the circus people again after that. At that point I was property of the Empire, so I got passed around a lot between different regiments.”

“And how old were you, then?”  

“Thirteen when the sky Changed, so I would've been fifteen when I got bonded into the Empire.”

Phil took a deep breath, kept his face as calm as he could while his mind turned over the implications of that. Thirteen, fuck. Phil had had a hard enough time after the Change and he had been twenty-three.

“And how long were you with the Alleghany Empire?” Natasha asked, tearing Phil from his thoughts.

“Five or six years, I think?”

“What happened then?”

“The regiment I was with went AWOL. Decided they didn't like the way Red Father was running things, so they split off and took me with them when they headed southwest. The commander was foolish. He thought that Red Father hadn’t sent loyal troops in pursuit because he had foreseen his men being defeated by the deserters. It should've been a warning -  I think Red Father probably knew about the raider ambush that would wipe them all out so that's why he didn't bother trying to hunt us down.”

“The raiders captured you?”

“Yeah. I was with them for a couple seasons until they traded me. Then I got sold around a lot for a while until I caught Harlan’s eye. He was the leader of a big group that was trying to make it to California. They came from somewhere in Iowa I think. I spent the last couple months chained up in the back of a covered wagon as they dropped like flies. Horses got sick, there wasn't enough food, nobody really knew what they were doing.” Clint shook his head sadly “One family tried to cross a river without making a sacrifice and they burned in the water. Harlan never said as much, but I think he ended up getting lost. That's why he traded me to that store for a map. Then you found me.”

Phil had plenty of questions, but he didn't want this to seem too much like an interrogation. Best to start with something benign.“A covered wagon?”

“Yeah. None of the people who owned me before now were sorcerers.”

No wonder Clint had been so freaked out by the truck.

The Alleghany Empire was one of those places where using anything more mechanical than a mule cart for transportation would get someone burned alive for witchcraft. Phil might not have expected it now that he knew how far Clint had traveled, but it wasn't beyond the realm of possibility for Clint to have gone the whole ten years without encountering groups who were adept at manipulation.

(That was one of Tony’s words - _manipulation_ . The inventor didn't like to call what he did _magic_ and insisted that it was all perfectly logical. According to Tony, it wasn't all that more complicated than the Law of Gravity or the Theory of Relativity once you understood it. Phil wasn't so sure about that.)

It had been a whole decade, but one could never underestimate how much people hated change. Some adjustment was inevitable, necessary for survival, but plenty of groups had decided to fall back on the type of living that hadn’t been widespread since before the industrial revolution instead of moving forward and genuinely adapting to the new world.

“We're not sorcerers.” Phil replied belatedly. Clint just nodded in agreement, though he was looking guarded again, holding himself carefully still.

“By his definition we are.” Natasha added, face inscrutable as she stared at Clint. “Sorcerers or wizards. He’d probably call a couple of us ‘mortifiers’ except that its rude and he'd be scared shitless to call someone that to their face. Wouldn't you?”

Clint nodded again, eyes dropped to the floor. “Yes ma'am.”

“Mortifiers?” That one Phil hadn't heard before

“People who don't just interact with the weird stuff, but have it as a part of themselves. Like Pepper.”

 Phil nodded I'm understanding before Natasha pressed on with more questions.

“Alright. Now tell me what type of sacrifice you made to cross the big river?”

\---

Clint wasn't sure how long they had interrogated him before turning in for the night, but he understood the score. He had been given food, good food, and he was expected to pay for it with information. Not that Clint was complaining. It was one of the easier ways that he could repay such a debt, and they didn't even get mad when he couldn't answer some of the questions.

The next morning he sat at the kitchen table where Pepper had told him to sit, bleary eyed and slow with exhaustion until the woman put a slice of bread spread with butter in front of him. Then he woke up fast. Clint couldn't refuse the food lest he seem ungrateful, but he didn’t have any more information to give. This, he would be expected to pay for in other ways.

Of course Clint hadn’t believed what his new owner said the night before about Clint being free. It just wasn't possible. Pretty lies, tempting lies, but Clint didn't need them. Phil hadn't seemed like the type to play tricks to be cruel - he probably just didn't want to deal with Clint trying to run again. After the relief of not having been turned out into the storm or being sold again, Phil had said that even though Clint wasn't a slave anymore he would still have to earn his keep. Then Clint had understood. He'd had owners phrase it like that before

Phil had told him not to lay on the floor, so Clint had stayed in the bed but he hadn't slept all night. He had stayed quiet and still, curled up with his face turned towards the wall. All of Clint's senses had been on high alert as he waited for the door creak open, for someone to slide under the covers behind him. The morning found Clint nervy and exhausted from hours of clenching his teeth, pressing his fingers against his wounded face whenever he thought he might be falling drifting off. Clint had been so sure that someone would come so that Clint could start ' _earning his keep'_. No one had. It wasn't a good sign.

So Clint kept his silence at the table and ate the bread that he had been given, wondering all the while about what he would have to do for Pepper in exchange. He kept one wary eye on her as she moved around the kitchen, even as Clint pretended to stare out the window at the land outside, the sky that was just starting to go grey and pink with sunrise. Clint could hear the creaking floorboards that indicated people moving around in other parts of the house, but he hadn't yet seen anyone other than Pepper until Tony showed up. 

“Can I borrow that guy for a minute?” Tony leaned against the counter next to where Pepper was cutting slices off of a loaf of bread. Quick as a theif, he snatched one and stuffed the whole thing into his mouth.

“What guy?”

“That guy.” Tony’s speech was muffled as he worked at swallowing the bread. He waved one of his hands at Clint. “You know, that guy right there. Phil's buddy. The new guy. Cliff?”

“Clint.” Pepper corrected.

“Yep, that's it.” Tony snapped his fingers, looking triumphant. “So can I borrow him? Need to get him put in the system if he's gonna be around for a bit.”

The woman shrugged, pushing her hair back over one shoulder. Pepper didn't seem like anything other than a normal person, but every time Clint looked at her he remembered the way that her hands had gone molten, her eyes fiery and fierce and deadly when Clint had surprised her.  

“Why are you asking me? Ask him.”

Tony’s attention snapped to Clint. “Can I borrow you?”

Clint looked back and forth between Tony and Pepper. He didn't have the best grasp on all the personal dynamics of the house yet, but Clint could tell that these two were together. So Tony could conceivably collect on any ‘debts’ that Clint owed to Pepper. Or maybe it didn’t work like that here, but Clint had no way of knowing. He had no idea how he was supposed to handle the situation, but before Clint could make up his mind -

“Okay.” Tony said “Silence implies consent. C’mon, let's go.”

Decision made for him, Clint followed Tony out of the house and across the damp earth, still wet from the rain the night before. The sun hadn’t risen above the horizon yet, and Clint wrapped his arms around his chest to keep warm. It cool enough so that exhaling cause little white puffs to cloud the air, and Clint was still barefoot, dressed only in the clothes that Phil had given him the night before. But Tony walked fast enough that just keeping up with him helped Clint to stay warm, ignoring the cold mud between his toes.

Tony followed a path that wound around the barn and headed towards a grove of the same type of trees that had attacked Clint. Sensing Clint’s hesitance, Tony said “Just stay close. As long as you're with me and I'm chilled out you don't have to worry about setting them off, alright?”

“Yessir.”

“Hold up real quick.” Tony stopped and Clint froze in his tracks, wondering if it was some type of test until Tony continued “Phil said you told him you're good at shooting with a bow.”

“Yessir.”

“Well, we're gonna have to see what we can do about that. And enough with that ‘sir’ crap.” Tony started walking towards the trees again and Clint followed, trying not to choke around the cold stone of dread that had settled in his chest.

Clint wanted to get on his knees and beg. To try and reassure Tony that Clint hadn't shot a bow in years, that he probably wasn't even that good at it anymore. But begging never helped, and for once the words turned to dust in his mouth. Clint had known it was a mistake to tell them about his skill with a bow, but he had done it anyway. Hope had gotten the better of him and now Tony was going to ‘do something’ about it. Because of course it was too dangerous to have a slave with a history of running away _and_ familiarity with weaponry. Clint would be near useless without his hands, but maybe they would only take a couple fingers or damage his eyes so that he couldn't see as well. Or maybe… maybe Tony was going to put a curse on Clint. That was somehow the most terrifying option of them all.

True to Tony’s word, the trees didn't so much as rustle when Tony led Clint past them to an ancient wooden building that was nestled back in the grove. It looked as if it would collapse in a stiff breeze as the walls all listed to the right, the structural integrity long since compromised by rot and time. A couple of jagged holes were punched through the roof where the wood had been caved in by weather or neglect or things unknown, and the single doorway was dark in shadow thrown by the low angle of the rising sun that hadn’t quite crested the ridgeline.

Almost hidden by the short grass, an orderly line of white and black stones was laid out around the building. It was one of the few enchantments that Clint could recognize on sight. Silencing circles were one of those things that hadn’t existed before the Change, but didn't really seem to qualify as _magic_. A person didn't have to have any skill or special ability to lay one - all they had to have was a bunch of white and black rocks, enough to make a ring around whatever they wanted to keep quiet.

Something was going to happen to Clint inside that circle, and nobody outside of it would be able to hear him scream. Clint stopped with the tips of his bare toes brushing the edge of the stones, unable to make himself go any further even though he knew that he was only going to make it worse for himself. Tony had already crossed into the circle already before he looked back over his shoulder and saw that Clint hadn’t followed. Scowling, he had to step back over the line of rocks.

“What's the holdup?”

Clint cringed back, but didn't dare run.

“What? I'm not going to hurt you, for fuck’s sake.” Tony scoffed “We're doing this so you won't get fucked up so bad in the future.” Then Tony grabbed him by the wrist and jerked him across the line of stones.

Once he was inside of the circle, Clint could hear everything that had been muted on the outside of the ring. But that wasn't quite right. Clint didn’t just _hear_ it - the humming was more than a sound.

Clint could feel the deafening drone sinking into every single pore on his skin, lighting his blood on fire, vibrating his teeth in their sockets and the organs in his chest. Everything smelled like hot metal and burnt sugar and even the little hairs in Clint’s nose were thrumming with the all encompassing buzz. Clint was starting to hyperventilate. His feet stuck to the ground, and the arm that was still caught in Tony’s grip pulled tight. The other man turned around, scowling and impatient until he saw the naked fear in Clint’s eyes. To talk, Tony had to get close enough that Clint could feel the other man’s breath on the curve of his ear.

“Nothing in there will hurt you, but you gotta do what I tell you. Don't be afraid.”

Those last words seemed to fill the air around them, the frequency of Tony’s speech tangled in the humming vibrations and echoed back again and again in otherworldly cadance. Chopped up and staticy, the words were still clear enough that Clint could hear the whispers

_‘Don't be. Don't. Afraid. Don't be afraid. Be. Don't. Be. Don't be afraid. Don't be afraid.’_

It was already far, far too late for that.

Clint’s eyes took a second to adjust after they stepped through the doorway, and it took his brain another second to fully comprehend what he was seeing. A few filmy rays of morning light were shining down through the holes in the ceiling, illuminating the floating dust motes and the dark, writhing orb hung in the middle of the open space. The sphere was weirdly fuzzy around the edges and big enough across that Clint wouldn't have been able to reach across it at the widest, equatorial point. It didn’t seem to be supported by anything. The sphere just hovered about three feet off the ground, pulsing and humming.

This was where the noise was coming from, this squirming black sun. When Clint squinted his eyes to look closer at the ball he realized that it was made up of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of bees. Clint felt lightheaded with the realization, and to stop from passing out he had to squeeze his eyes shut and turn his head away. Still, it did nothing to block out the buzzing that permeated every inch of the world.

When Clint managed to reopen his eyes he was looking at the nearest wall. The wood was the same dull brown fading to grey as the exterior of the building, etched with tiny, cramped lines of letters and symbols. It was all gibberish to Clint, who could read a little bit but couldn't make and sense of the inscription that covered every square inch of wall space that he could see. 

“Jarvis, I have someone I want you to meet.” Tony put a hand on Clint’s shoulder, and Clint whipped his attention back to the hovering ball of bees. “This is Clint.”

_‘Hel-lo, Clint.’_

Unlike before when the buzzing had simply echoed Tony’s words, this was purposeful. A response rather than a mindless mimicking. Clint’s arms broke out in goosebumps as he watched the teeming bees. It was worse, in a way, to think that this...thing could be intelligent. Was there a person living in there? Or a soul, maybe, bound to the swarm?

“Clint's going to be living here now, so I need you to add him to your friends list.”

 _‘Right away, Mister Stark_.’

A single bee separated itself from the orb, winding lazily through the air as it made it's way toward Clint. Clint was so preoccupied by watching the insect and trying not to piss himself from fear that he didn't notice Tony reaching out until the other man peeled the bandage off of Clint’s face in one quick, painful yank. Then Tony was up in his face, peering intently at Clint.

“You're gonna wanna hold still for this next part, okay? And if you swat my bee I'll kick your ass.”

Clint didn't get a chance to respond before he felt the insect land on the tip his nose. After that Clint held very, very still.

Breathing slow and shallow, he thought that he could feel each one of the bug's tiny legs as it crawled across his face. It made it's way up the bridge of his nose, and Clint had to close his eyes when he felt the bee crawling between them. To Clint's horror it trundled it's little body across his eyelid, wings buzzing just enough to tickle the delicate skin. Then it went down, crawling across Clint's damaged cheek, passing onto one of the patches of skin that Clint couldn’t feel. The nerves there were dead, the skin rubbery, and even though Clint couldn’t feel it's little bee feet walking on him anymore he could very clearly imagine the taking it's time and exploring the wounds, leaving little prints of blood wherever it went 

Clint only barely managed to keep his body still as his eyes shot open. His head was not a good place to be at the moment and he needed to get out of it.

There wasn’t anything in his line of sight other than the sphere of bees, but as Clint stared at it he started to wonder of it was really a ball at all. It was starting to look a lot more like a _hole_. A perfectly circular tear in the fabric of reality, a throbbing, humming doorway that Clint was going to fall through and emerge on the other side into some undiscovered country. The bees that crawled all over one another were vibrating their wings and buzzing out the secrets of a passage to the heart of something else, something much bigger and deeper and more intelligent than Clint could possibly comprehend.

The trance was broken when the bee lifted off from Clint’s face and flew back over to the writhing ball. When it touched down, all the movement of the bees stopped. The incessant humming cut out as well. Only then did Clint realize that he had forgotten what silence sounded like. 

Then the humming started up once more. A layer of bees peeled away from the surface of the orb in a perfect spiral, a wide, flat ribbon, as if someone were peeling the skin from and orange. Bees drifted upward through the slanting rays of sunlight and out through the holes in the roof, disappearing into the world beyond. Clint couldn't be certain, but he didn't think that the sphere of bees left behind looked any smaller.

“Thanks Jarvis!” 

‘ _My pl-leasure, Mister Stark_.’

Tony grabbed Clint by the elbow, led him from the building and out across the line of the silencing circle. Once they were back out into the world there was a long moment where all Clint could do was breathe deep and listen to wind blowing and the birds chirping and the sound of his own frantic heartbeat in his ears. He could see a few of the bees bumbling lazily through the chill air, making their way between the trees as if they were normal insects and not… whatever it was that they were a part of. 

“I'd give it an hour or so to make sure the data transfer is complete, but after that you shouldn't have to worry about the trees anymore.” Tony said, startling Clint out of his daze. “Speaking of. How's your handwriting?”

“My what?”

“Hand. Writing. The rain washed a bunch of paint off of the trucks last night. Gotta get it rewritten if we want to go anywhere. So, I ask again. How. Is. Your. Handwriting?”

“Umm…” Clint’s mind scrambled, trying to remember the last time he'd written anything. Tony didn't seem like a particularly patient guy, but he hadn't gotten too frustrated with Clint’s slowness yet. Clint wanted to keep it that way. “Bad?”

“Ha!” Tony grinned, looking pleased “I like your honesty. Let's go see if we can find Bruce."

**Author's Note:**

> [tumblr ](http://www.bingitoff.Tumblr.com)  
>     
> I write and edit everything on my phone, so please let me know if I've made any terrible mistakes.
> 
> Kudos and comments are loved!


End file.
